“You’ve spent your whole life waiting for someone who sees you,” he says. “Not the version you clean up for the world. Not the girl who smiles when she wants to scream.”
His fingers skim up my arms—so slowly it’s maddening.
“You wanted someone who looks past the pretty,” he murmurs, “and sees the chaos beneath.”
His mouth grazes my ear.
“You found him.”
My knees nearly buckle.
His hands trail down again—back to my wrists, where he holds me against the mirror like he’s pinning me to myself.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “Fucking breathtaking. You don’t even know what you do to people, do you?”
I shake my head.
He chuckles darkly. “Of course you don’t. You’re too busy surviving.”
The silence stretches, thick and gold and devastating.
“Want to know what I saw when I first laid eyes on you?”
I nod.
His voice drops lower.
“Power.”
That catches me off guard.
Not beauty. Not innocence. Not temptation.
Power.
He leans in so close I can feel his words on my skin.
“You walked into that club like you didn’t belong but every man in there turned toward you like you were gravity. Like you were the fucking centre of the universe and they’d just figured it out.”
I can’t look away from the mirror.
Not when he’s behind me like that.
Not when I can see the wild in my eyes—the want.
“I don’t chase,” he says. “Not women. Not fantasies.”
My breath catches.
“But you…”
His hand brushes my hip. A whisper of touch. Barely there.
“You’re not a fantasy, are you, butterfly?”
I try to shake my head, but he tsks.
“No,” he whispers. “You’re the warning they never listened to. The storm that looks like a sunrise. The pretty little thing that men underestimate until she’s got her foot on their throat.”
